The last time the Suns were this bad at this point in a season, it turned out to be a good thing.

It was 1988 and the Suns were 17-36 before a visit to the Lakers, rather than after one.

Later that February, team President Cotton Fitzsimmons made perhaps the best trade in franchise history when he sent All-Star Larry Nance to Cleveland in a package that would get the Suns Kevin Johnson, Mark West, Tyrone Corbin and Cleveland’s first-round draft pick.

The Suns still won only 28 games, missing the playoffs for a third straight year (sound familiar)?

Thus, they had their pick, seventh overall, and No.14 from the Cavaliers. They took Tim Perry with their own pick and Dan Majerle with 14.

That off-season the Suns were the first team in NBA history to sign an unrestricted free agent when Tom Chambers agreed to a five-year contract for the outlandish sum of $9million. That’s, um, total — not per year.

The next season, with Fitzsimmons taking over as coach, the Suns won 55 games, started a run of 13 consecutive playoff appearances and laid the foundation for what is now US Airways Center.

Let’s just say the current regime is going to have one tough time matching that turnabout.

The Suns don’t have a player like Nance or a broker like Fitzsimmons to make a blockbuster.

Majerle surely won’t be contributing this time after being passed over for interim coach when Alvin Gentry departed.

The draft is a different beast than it was 25 years ago.

And now Kentucky’s Nerlens Noel, whom many projected as the top pick, has suffered a torn anterior cruciate knee ligament, which makes him a risky selection.

That’s no small thing considering that an Eastern Conference player-personnel executive we speak with from time to time told us this week that there are only three team-changing players in this draft.

After that, he said, you might get as good a player outside the lottery as in it.

The Suns, entering Wednesday with the fifth-worst record, figure to be headed for a pick that falls somewhere from No.5-7. Of course, with more losses or the favorable bounce of some ping-pong balls in the lottery system, it could be better.

Who knows? Maybe Noel slips to the Suns.

Then there is the pick the Lakers owe Phoenix. If Los Angeles gets into the playoffs, they likely keep their pick and give the Suns Miami’s choice, which will fall in the first-round basement.

If the Lakers miss the playoffs, the Suns get their pick. That would mean a choice in the same area that Majerle went in 1988.

But such a thin draft board might also explain why the team enters its All-Star break sniffing around for trades, reportedly targeting New York guard Iman Shumpert or Utah big man Al Jefferson, whose contract is up this summer.

“If I see the foundation being strengthened the right way, then I think in the long run it will be better,” he said. “I know it will, because I’ve seen it work.”

Team President Lon Babby and General Manager Lance Blanks have expressed confidence in what Hunter is doing, which one would expect, since they hired him.

“There’s a lot of teaching going on, a lot more discipline,” Babby said over the weekend. “Guys are working hard. There is more emphasis on execution and a general sense of candor and honesty in the gym for everybody concerned.

“We’ve had some good wins. Michael Beasley is playing better, and it’s nice to see Kendall (Marshall) out there.”

Blanks said “the results will take care of themselves on some level” and he’s most interested in the culture change.

“I think the environment is lively, and guys are excited,” he said. “They’re trying to do the right things on a daily basis.”

And Blanks said that Hunter continues, unofficially, in the role of a player-development coach.

“He’s still developing guys, taking steps during games or watching film with them on the plane, meeting guys early or taking them to lunch or dinner,” Blanks said.

“He’s in a teaching mode.”

That’s good. Maybe he can teach them a little history, and hope like heck 1988 repeats itself.

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